Rollers on Clarinets

Steve

Steve

Clarinet CE/Moderator
Staff member
CE/Moderator
I find it quite interesting being a sax and a clarinet player that the clarinet really has never evolved much over the last century.

There have been numerous attempts of course but nothing stuck.

Once such thing that I saw from a few manufacturers, and on older Albert systems, was the use of rollers.

certain generation Albert clarinets (Buffet, Selmer, etc) had rollers on the left and right pinky spatula keys to assist in easy finger dragging movement from one key to the next.

the Marigaux Symphonie has rollers on the Eb/C (top two ) right hand spatula keys
http://www.clarinetperfection.com/galleryclar/Marigaux/02.JPG

and a Cousenon that I have has it on the Eb key
http://www.clarinetperfection.com/galleryclar/Couesnon/1952_Roller.jpg

I find this roller to slightly make it easier to play especially after you have been playing for a while and your fingers get sweaty or sticky. It just makes it a bit easier.

Then when you think about it a bit more, why are the keys not more like the LH table keys on a saxophone ? you would be able to slide to any key instead of lifting first.

Wouldn't this be a better design, albeit against the traditionalists (which seems to be the majority of the problem).

Just want to see what people think about rollers in general on clarinets .....
 
I love rollers now that I have the RS Symphonie. It's to me a better solution than having the forked Eb which requires one to make an additional post or mount 2 levers on one post. Ergonomic register key is also a no-brainer. It requires no change to the Boehm fingering at all... it's something that really should be made to fit the needs of the player. Of course, that's not everyone's cup of tea.
 
Personally, I don't really care either way, even on the sax. Saxophones didn't initially have rollers, after all. I can just slide my finger over.

I think rollers can help, for some players, and I wouldn't mind seeing them on some clarinets -- and particularly the clarinets that have low C extensions. For saxophones, if you have the traditional low A key under the RH thumbrest, a roller would work fairly well there, too. And with the octave key(s).
 
And, of course, German clarinets ("Oehler system") have had them for many years...

I've had clarinets with rollers, clarinets without rollers, bass clarinets with rollers and without, and saxophones of both varieties. Personally, I feel that they get in the way, and give me an "insecure" feeling when touching the key. But, I can see why others may want them.
 
SOTSDO said:
And, of course, German clarinets ("Oehler system") have had them for many years...

I've had clarinets with rollers, clarinets without rollers, bass clarinets with rollers and without, and saxophones of both varieties. Personally, I feel that they get in the way, and give me an "insecure" feeling when touching the key. But, I can see why others may want them.
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Terry, remind me, were you a clarinet player before you learned to play sax?
 
I was a bass clarinet player several years before I was a clarinet player, and sax came along late in the game, say when a sophomore in high school. But, to confuse the issue, my first bass clarinet (a Buffet horn of the "Albert" persuasion) had rollers for both little fingers.

Why??? Envious? Scared? In awe?
 
I'd love rollers on the pinky keys on a boehm clarinet. As a kid I was taught never to slide unless there was absolutely no alternative. It's probably that sort of attitude that has led to them not being accepted in the Boehm world. I don't agree with it. It quite a hard thing to get the hang of and if you hardly ever do it you'll never get good at it. I speak from experience. Since I've been playing tárogató I've had to practice sliding really hard.

Here's a real rollerfest that I came across a while ago. I wonder how well the rollers on the sliver keys work on this instrument.

ucjd0136x069a_s.jpg
 
I tried that for a while, just out of curiosity, but ended up returning to the fingertip method of operation. But, I'm the guy who never touches any of the bis keys on his saxophones, so what do I know?
 
Gandalfe said:
...Okay, and there may be a little fear too. ;)
Click to expand...

One of the very few flaws that were once noted in my "style" was that my positive, straight-forward style of communication "could be seen as intimidating by women". (This was before I moved into management.)

When I moved into management, my relationship with my "girls" (over twenty years, I supervised about ten women, out of a total of perhaps thirty different employees) was characterized by harmony and empowerment. Out of that total, five were promoted into management (out of a total of fifteen of my employees who were similarly promoted), the highest figure ever for my position in the agency.

So, either I moulded and shaped them through my "style", or they wanted to get the hell out. Take yer pick...
 
... Back to the original topic ...
SteveSklar said:
I find it quite interesting being a sax and a clarinet player that the clarinet really has never evolved much over the last century.
Click to expand...
... the thing that I'd like to see is a clarinet that sounds like a clarinet, but has saxophone keywork. Overblows an octave. Has a standard clarinet range, too. In Bb. THAT would be interesting.

Such a horn would probably look an awful lot like an alto clarinet. The keywork might not necessarily be that difficult: the "fly-by-wire" thing mentioned in another thread might make this possible.

The problem with most (if not all) musical instruments is they have some flaw that makes them illogical. For the clarinet, it's overblowing that 12th. For the saxophone, it's the lack of a full Boehm system (which, I think, isn't that much of a problem). I'd be interested to see if a clarinet could be made like this!
 
Actually, with the clarinet, the ancient crow's foot approach as well as the bridge keys have been annoying at times since they can lead to the instrument out of alignment. The seating of pads also is a bit of an issue mechanically. Recent advent of synthetic pads does partly address the issue of longevity, but leakages aren't all due to the pads after all...

I guess the closest thing in feel to what you've said Pete would be a Soprano Sax... that thing reminds me a little of the Taragoto somehow for some odd reason.
 
SOTSDO said:
As long as it has a conical bore, it ain't a clarinet...
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... and tends to sound more like a soprano sax.

I was also wondering if anyone experimented with, say, a conical bore barrel and/or mouthpiece. The flute, for instance, doesn't always have a conical bore headjoint.
 
pete said:
... Back to the original topic ...

... the thing that I'd like to see is a clarinet that sounds like a clarinet, but has saxophone keywork. Overblows an octave. Has a standard clarinet range, too. In Bb. THAT would be interesting.

Such a horn would probably look an awful lot like an alto clarinet. The keywork might not necessarily be that difficult: the "fly-by-wire" thing mentioned in another thread might make this possible.

The problem with most (if not all) musical instruments is they have some flaw that makes them illogical. For the clarinet, it's overblowing that 12th. For the saxophone, it's the lack of a full Boehm system (which, I think, isn't that much of a problem). I'd be interested to see if a clarinet could be made like this!
Click to expand...

It would have to be "fly by wire" if you want it to sound like a clarinet but give the impression of overblowing at the octave. Crossing the break would be odd; It would be very counter intuitive to have a huge change in response like that happening in the middle of the second register. I'm not sure that separating the physics from the fingering that much would be a good idea.

The tárogató is almost the opposite. It's a saxophone-like thing with simple system clarinet fingering. It has smaller tone holes than a soprano sax but there is an overlap in the range of sounds that the two instruments can produce.
 
My main concern about an electro-mechanical clarinet (or saxophone, for that matter) is that the weight of the mechanism would far exceed the standard rods used to transmit finger force on the "original" instrument. Aside from the batteries running down during use, the coil of a magnetic actuator would involve substantially more weight (as such things are currently constructed).

There is a mechanical alternative to the current rod system, that being the Bowden cable. Commonly used for "pull" applications on bicycles (like hand brakes and shifter actuators), they can also be used for push applications with limited loading (thus saving some weight when shutting keys directly, rather than pulling on a lever around which the key rotates to close the hole).

I have recently purchased a toilet flush actuator in which the "flapper" is lifted not by a lever but rather a push button (split for fluid flushes and solid flushes), acting through a Bowden cable and a lever to initially lift the flapper valve. While not the highest quality piece of work to pass through my hands, it still delivers a precise amount of force to a location distant from the buttons' location, and does it instantaneously. And, it allows for the actuating buttons to be located at an infinite number of different locations (since it is made to fit a wide variety of toilet tanks).

What this would translate out into musical instrument terms is that key locations could be flexible, as the touchpiece location would no longer be rigidly attached to the location of the key. So, on (for example) a bass saxophone, the touch pieces for the "finger holes" and the remainder of the keys would no longer have to have feet of metal rods employed to put the finger locations into something of a reasonable approximation of an alto.

It would look weird, though, as the best way to employ them is to allow the loops of cable to stand free rather than to be fastened down. (Like wire ropes over pulleys, the actuating wires within a Bowden cable can only be led around certain diameters of curves.)
 
Ultimately, the thing that stands the best of chance in succeeding the horn would be EWI in achieving the objectives of getting around the mechanical limitations to a Clarinet, while sounding predictable...

Today however, an EWI, regardless of the sound bank, still cannot replicate the timbre fully. It is ultimately a totally different instrument to all previous kinds of woodwind so...
 
Franklin Liao said:
Ultimately, the thing that stands the best of chance in succeeding the horn would be EWI in achieving the objectives of getting around the mechanical limitations to a Clarinet, while sounding predictable...

Today however, an EWI, regardless of the sound bank, still cannot replicate the timbre fully. It is ultimately a totally different instrument to all previous kinds of woodwind so...
Click to expand...
I've maintained that the WORST tone patch on any synth is the saxophone. I've only heard one patch that sounded even close and that was on the looooong discontinued Roland U330.

Clarinets? Most that I've heard are passable. However, even if you have a really good tone generator, it's quite probable that the thing has really poor breath sensitivity.

It is possible to create a dedicated synth that can play the standard range of, say, the basset clarinet (i.e. 8vb :TrebleClef::Line0: to 8va :TrebleClef::Line5:), but it'd have to be dedicated because you'd be sampling a lot of notes in a lot of ways. It might be better if the sampler was analog rather than digital. I seem to remember the Beatles used an analog sampler ....
 
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